Visit Old Beach Chris & Jenny 2025

Situated in the rain-shadow impacted suburb of Old Beach, Beechill is well on its way to becoming a very productive food garden thanks to the hard work of Chris and Jenny.

 
Starting with a blank slate is always an exciting prospect, and for Chris and Jenny, a large, empty block in Old Beach offered just that. With plenty of room for a house, a shed, a separate flat, and space left over for their garden, they developed a plan for what they could create. Back in 2021, the first thing that went up, before any buildings, was a sizeable fenced garden area.

…Which was fortuitous because the downside of taking on a blank slate is the unforeseen issues you discover along the way. That fencing didn’t just keep out foraging fauna but also protected the ground that would become the heart of the food garden. The various building projects resulted in an unexpected amount of disruption to the soil over most of the property. The fenced garden area, however, was spared from the ravages of the infrastructure works. Outside the protected area, Chris & Jenny were left with a mess to clean up. They fashioned their own silver lining by pushing the building spoils into mounds which became raised sections planted with native shrubs helping create an attractive landscape for Beechill.

Beechill was so christened as a nod to “Old Beach” with a tie-in to an area where Jenny spent much of her childhood in Northern Ireland. This bit of whimsy is underscored by a couple of beeches, native and exotic, planted on the property. Those few beech trees are joined by many other trees and shrubs, about 200 in total, in specific planting zones covering the plot. Chris explained that trees were the starting point for the plantings and provided the framework for the garden. Many of them are now becoming established outside of the initial fenced area.

Inside the fenced enclosure is the main orchard with a large variety of fruit trees. Trellises are in place for espaliering which is an ongoing project as the plants mature.

 

 

The large, fenced area contains a smaller, very productive netted area, with a collection of food plants, notably berries which were buzzing with honeybees and bumble bees on the sunny morning of our visit.

There are also several raised veggie beds in the enclosure which provide healthy additions to the family meals.

 

This central area is home the hot house which is used to raise seedlings. One day it might be used for growing vegetables but right now it’s the starting point for many of the food and native plants found on the property.

 

One plant that Chris is experimenting with is both a native and a foodplant. The humble pigface can be found in a few spots on the property and, though yet to be eaten by Chris and Jenny, has the benefits of being a survivor in dry conditions, an attractive addition to the garden, and every part of the plant is edible, raw or cooked. A quick internet search will have you wanting to try some of the leaves on your next salad, spice up your next stir fry with this salty vegetable, or sample the fruit which reportedly tastes like a salty kiwi.

As we all know, no garden has any chance of success without water. That goes double for this property which is located in the notoriously dry northern section of the Eastern Shore of Hobart and buffeted by winds from nearly every direction. At Beechill, there are 3 sources of water that work together to keep the house and garden thriving. Firstly, there is town water, but that’s primarily used inside the home. For the garden, two large rainwater tanks (each over 20k litres) collect rain from the house and shed. This water is piped around the entire property to keep the plants happy. The necessity of this is evidenced by the few dead trees planted before the irrigation was completed. The 3rd water source is treated sewage water which is used in a seepage system under an area of trees. With this hat-trick of water, the property can hopefully flourish through all but the most dire of droughts and, when we visit again in a few years’ time, we can bear witness to its success.

Thank you, Chris and Jenny, for welcoming us onto your property and letting us see the fruits of your labour, enjoy our morning tea chatting together, and share our plants on the overflowing produce table.



Thanks to Max and Gaye for again organising another wonderful visit.